California bill seeks to update outdated 1872 law on when...

1of2Marc McCoy, brother of Willie McCoy who was fatally shot by Vallejo police on Feb. 9, tears up at the home of Kori McCoy in Hercules as he speaks about the incident.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

2of2Clara McCoy, sister-in-law of Willie McCoy, shows pictures of Willie to Peyton McCoy, 3, center, at the home of Kori McCoy, in Hercules, Calif., on Thursday, February 14, 2019. The family of Willie McCoy, who was shot and killed by Vallejo Police officers as he woke up from sleeping in his car at a Taco Bell restaurant, gathered for press conference to address their issues with how their loved one was killed.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

California’s law governing when a homicide by an officer is justified was written in 1872 — nine years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves. If there’s anything that is overdue to be rewritten, this is it.

The bill, AB392, would regulate when police can open fire on people.

“That bill would establish very clear standards and guidelines for when officers can and cannot use deadly force,” Lizzie Buchen, a legislative advocate for the ACLU of Nortnern California, told me. “If that bill passes, then all agencies would have to update their use-of-force standards.”

According to the bill, deadly force would be acceptable only to prevent imminent death or serious bodily injury. It would require law enforcement officers to exhaust every alternative before firing their service weapons. It would allow police departments to discipline or fire officers who use unnecessary deadly force.

The bill will make it easier to prosecute police officers for their actions.

Yes, sometimes officers have to use force. They do a dangerous job in which people at times try to kill them — like what apparently happened over the weekend in Napa, where a deputy’s body camera showed a man firing at her before she shot him dead. But cops are trained professionals. We have a right to expect them to be better, and with this many people of color dying in these particular ways, we as a society have to help cops — make them — become better.

“When you change policy, you will hopefully change people’s attitudes,” said Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, one of the bill’s co-authors. “You will change how they’re trained to do their jobs.”

This isn’t the first time Weber has tried to change the state’s use-of-force policy. As my colleague Alexei Koseff reported, the measure is nearly identical to a proposal that was shelved at the end of the last legislative session. That measure was introduced amid public outrage over the death of Stephon Clark, a black man who was unarmed when police fatally shot him in Sacramento in March.

The law needs an update, because there isn’t enough accountability for police officers who fatally shoot people like McCoy. Police killed more than 100 civilians in California in 2018. Only a few cases were prosecuted.

For two years, I’ve written about the police shooting black and brown people in Vallejo — people who might still be alive if officers were governed by higher use-of-force standards. McCoy was asleep in his car in a Taco Bell drive-through lane, and then was shot dead.

According to police, when McCoy awoke he reached for the fully loaded, semiautomatic handgun with an extended magazine, that was in his lap. Yes, McCoy had a gun. That’s not in dispute. He should’ve been arrested for carrying an illegal firearm.

The Vallejo Police Department, which hasn’t returned my requests for comment, hasn’t addressed why officers felt an imminent threat to their lives.

McCoy was hit more than 20 times. The bullets pelted his face, shoulders, chest and arms, according to a family attorney who viewed his body. An official coroner’s report hasn’t been released.

“All of it is important if you’re going to do reform, but clearly changing the use of lethal force will have an impact because, obviously, we hope there will be fewer incidents of people being shot,” Weber said.

The bill was referred to the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15.

“This bill will hopefully make the use of lethal force the last thing you do and that the purpose of doing it is because you know that this person is going to do you bodily harm,” Weber said.

Law enforcement organizations lobbied against last year’s bill, arguing that a change would make it more dangerous for police patrolling the streets because it would make officers hesitant. Earlier this month, a similar bill backed by law enforcement was introduced in the state Senate. It stops short of holding officers accountable for their actions, just like the people they arrest.

That’s not good enough. Just like the people they arrest, the police aren’t above the law.

“The majority of time, officers conduct themselves and do not cross that line,” said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, a co-author of AB392. “When there is an officer that crosses the line, we think this bill will force departments to rethink their practices and focus on less lethal tactics and de-escalation.”

Otis R. Taylor Jr. is the East Bay columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, focusing on the people who make the region a fascinating place to live and work. A South Carolina transplant, Otis spent more than a decade at The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, writing about arts, culture and entertainment. Previously, Otis was the managing editor of a tech startup. Otis is interested in reporting on issues relating to diversity and equality in the East Bay, as well as the region’s history, culture and politics. He studied English at Clemson University.